CC Justices Kennedy, Roberts: A healthcare attorney details the catastrophic coverage options in the ACA

Re my monthlong quest (begun 3/31) to highlight the catastrophic coverage options in the Affordable Care Act that the plaintiffs labored successfully to obfuscate: a healthcare attorney, keeper of the tumblr Ragbatz, apparently picked this dynamic up in real time as news emerged from the 3/27 oral arguments and wrote on 3/28:

Imagine answering Scalia’s yammering that the mandate should have been limited to catastrophic plans, with the short answer that, in essence, it was limited to catastrophic plans.  The Affordable Care Act requires insurers participating in an exchange to offer a “Bronze” level of coverage that has a higher deductible than “Silver” and “Gold” offerings.  The levels of the deductibles are determined by an actuarial formula; for 2014, a leading actuarial company has projected that the deductible in “Bronze” category would be $6,350.  Those healthy but cash-strapped youngsters Scalia is worried about are, under Obamacare, free to choose to a Bronze plan and thus to self-insure below that level.

Furthermore, community rating under the ACA permits age-related premium rates.  The youngest cohort can expect to pay a third of the amount charged to the pre-Medicare cohort.